<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Don't Mess With Mellie by TheNotCanadian</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189200">Don't Mess With Mellie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNotCanadian/pseuds/TheNotCanadian'>TheNotCanadian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Logan Lucky (2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Mellie is the lucky Logan, introspective piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 05:55:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,533</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189200</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNotCanadian/pseuds/TheNotCanadian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mellie Logan is the luckiest Logan - not that it means all that much.</p>
<p>She's also the most competent - not that anyone really cares.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe Bang/Mellie Logan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Don't Mess With Mellie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because I deserve Mellie/Joe Bang fics, even if I have to write them myself! Follows the movie canon closely from Mellie's POV. If there are mistaken details, don't tell me. I'd rather live in ignorance. T rating comes from mild language and one suggestive remark at the very end.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mellie Logan is known as “the good Logan”. Has always been “the lucky Logan”.</p>
<p>(Reasons provided for this are varied, but all inevitably come down to the fact that she’s probably not a Logan at all - given that she doesn’t look all that much like either of them or their daddy, aka a brick shithouse - and is probably the product of their momma’s not-so-secret affair with god knows who, and is definitely the Logan voted most likely to do something slightly worthwhile as a result of this lack of genuine Logan-ness. It’s probably all true, but the Logan siblings don’t speak about it. Brothers and sisters like they are don’t do that.)</p>
<p>For as long as she and her brothers have been around, that’s what they’ve called her. Doesn’t matter that she’s just as conniving and clever as Jimmy, and just as generally level-headed as Clyde, except when he’s talking about the family curse. Honestly the fact that she doesn’t get caught is probably the biggest indicator that she’s no Logan, but again, they don’t talk about that. (Momma left years ago and took the truth with her, so they’ll make their own truth, dammit.)</p>
<p>She’s not sure how she feels about people who excuse her from their Logan generalizations. On the one hand, she’s her own person, and it never hurts to be distanced from a family not well-known for their successes. On the other hand, when people think they can just badmouth Jimmy and Clyde in front of her without her saying anything, that sure as hell doesn’t work for her.</p>
<p>(She maintains to anyone who brings it up that snooty Mrs Pill’s hair just hadn’t taken to the bleach well, no input from her needed. Those things happened sometimes.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Her reasons for going along with Jimmy’s vague plan are varied, but ultimately amount to: the money can’t hurt, if she’s involved things are likely to go better, she can’t leave Jimmy and Clyde to sink alone, and the money really can’t hurt. </p>
<p>(She still has regulars and new clients, but Mrs Pill’s voice reaches further than anyone - especially her husband - would like.)</p>
<p>She lets Jimmy plan it all, because for all that she’s clever and conniving, she doesn’t have the greatest attention span or patience for these things. She does not help Jimmy assemble his dinky little pizza box model in order to convince Clyde, but she does remind him about the bacon and how it ought to be cooked for maximum Clyde-persuasion. (Her momma wasn’t a completely useless woman, sometimes.)</p>
<p>Her brothers need to recruit a safe-cracker, because that is a necessity, and she reminds them of their daddy’s brother’s best-friend’s ex-wife’s cousin who also once helped their dad out and may have also got him arrested, or something equally convoluted. </p>
<p>(She met the man she recommended once years ago when her daddy used to teach her all about cars out in the garage, and the look he’d given her was intrigued without being a pervert, fixed more on the grease stains on her forehead than the rest of her, which was nice given that she was fifteen and becoming a looker and already too used to grown men looking at her. After that one look he’d ignored her in favor of talking to her daddy, and she’d gone back to changing the oil.)</p>
<p>In any case, Joe Bang is their man, which makes his incarceration deeply inconvenient, but not unmanageable, and may even have its own benefits. She contributes a little to the plan, but mostly focuses on her pieces of the puzzle: the measurements, the car, the cockroaches, that poor woman and the cake. </p>
<p>(And staying as far away from the Bang brothers as she can. The Logans aren’t renowned for their intellectual prowess, but Mellie would bet a lot that she could lecture at universities compared to whatever is going on in their heads. If anything even is going on. Which she doubts. Still, they follow directions well-enough.)</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>She doesn’t actually meet Joe Bang in the flesh until they’re driving at top speed down the highway and he’s “gettin’ nekid” in the backseat of her ex-sister-in-law’s husband’s car. And as obnoxious as he is, he can keep on doing what he’s doing, ‘cause Moody’s annoying as all hell anyways, and on a much more regular basis than Joe, so it serves him right. (Also Joe has very nice biceps and collarbones that Moody does not have and no she didn’t peek. That much.)</p>
<p>What follows is exhausting on almost every level possible, but also the most thrilling thing she’s done since she won that road race in high school, which did not get her a date to prom from the boy she wanted to ask her, but did ensure that several others offered until she had her pick. (Mellie always gets what she wants, one way or another.) It must be said, however, that to whatever extent Mellie loves cars - and she does, more than a lot of other things - there is something inescapably dull about watching other people drive them when she knows she could do it herself and have a lot more fun with it. But she’s not stuck waiting in the car the whole time, and she gets to know the whole game on account of helping to plan it, so thank the lord for small mercies.</p>
<p>She gets Clyde and Joe to the firehouse with about as much effort as she originally anticipated, albeit with a lot more glances into the rearview mirror because it seems as though every time she looks back Joe is looking at her like she’s about as interesting as those chemical formulas she knows he doodles and solves when he’s not engaging with the people around him. As dimwitted as his brothers are, Joe is so smart it’s a little scary, if she thinks about it too much.</p>
<p>(At one point when Mellie corrects one of Joe's ramblings about chemistry - she's a hairdresser, she knows chemicals in her own way - while executing a move similar to what she saw on the track earlier, Joe crows out loud and says "Whoever said you Logans were simple-minded never met you, Little Logan!" She's not surprised people say that, just a little pleased that they can't say it about her.)</p>
<p>She leaves them with only one backwards glance, but she still catches the wink Joe throws her way, because of course, and although part of her is screaming “oh ho don’t do it” the other part is just a little bit flattered. Mellie knows she’s attractive - Moody’s staring even when his wife is nearby, and the runs and the yoga she does to keep herself in shape tell that story easily enough - but Joe is… well, it’s nice to be appreciated, even if it’s just for her looks. She’s okay with her looks distracting people, since that just means they won’t see it coming when she’s suddenly 90 miles ahead of them with no signs of stopping. </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>After all the time for waiting has passed, and the truth has come out well enough to the people who matter, she joins her brothers at Clyde’s bar (even though she always feels like she needs a tetanus shot afterwards, but apparently Jimmy’s seeing some doctor now so that might be a lot easier to get). Joe joins her at the bar and somehow he… looks good. Really good. How can a man who she knows just spent however long in prison look that good and barely like a criminal?</p>
<p>They drink and he flirts and when he puts his hand on her knee she doesn’t pull away. More than that, she eventually stops fiddling with her hair long enough to cover his hand with her own, rubbing her thumb over the tattoos on his fingers. </p>
<p>“So, Little Logan, I hear you’re the one to thank for all the little details. How long you been drivin’ like a maniac for?”</p>
<p>Not the most eloquent of conversation openers, but it’s exactly what Mellie likes to talk about. She smiles at him, sharklike, and he chuckles.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Well, maybe they’re right about Mellie being the lucky Logan, even though it seems that Clyde and Jimmy are doing better in that department these days. Joe certainly seems to think she is, generally speaking.</p>
<p>She’s pretty damn lucky, and not even just for a Logan (even if she still doesn’t buy Clyde’s whole ridiculous deal), if she says so herself. Maybe next time she’ll get to do more driving; you never know.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>
  <em>Post-Script</em>
</p>
<p>(The first time Joe blows up her coffee machine she informs him point blank she’ll put roaches in his sock drawer if it happens again. He laughs and pulls her close, pressing a whiskery kiss against her temple like he thinks she doesn’t know how scared he gets of them. The second time it happens she’s true to her word, because Mellie Logan always does what she says, and his screams echo all the way to Lynchburg, and it’s glorious. He gets his revenge by making her scream in his own way later, but that is neither here nor there, so mind your own business.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Because aren't we all just a little bit thirsty for Daniel Craig, especially when he seems like he's having the best time in kooky roles? Now go forth and write your own Joe/Mellie fics so I can read them! Kudos, comment, bookmark, what have you :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>